CHAPTER XII.THE TRAMPS.
Once in the orchard, they felt as if their feet were on their native heath, and they were up, in a twinkling, among the branches of their favourite tree.
In the munching of apples they quite forgot that they were tramps, until Cricket remarked that her hump made a most convenient pillow for her to lean back against.
“These clothes are getting awfully hot, Cricket,” said Eunice. “I wouldn’t be a boy for anything I can think of, to wear such things all the time.”
“I think girls are nicer than boys, anyway,” remarked Cricket, thoughtfully. “Girls are always smarter, and I think it makes boys mad.”
“Will always says if anything isn’t just right that we do, that it’s just like a girl,” returned Eunice, in an aggrieved tone.
“Yes, boys are just so funny, but I don’t mind,” said Cricket, philosophically.
“I’ve about made up my mind,” pursued Eunice, “that I sha’n’t get married when I grow up. Husbands are such a ’sponsibility. Mamma, you know, always fixes papa’s cravats for him, and he never, never goes to the right drawer for his clean shirts. It’s so funny! Shall you get married, Cricket?”
Cricket considered the question.
“I think,” she said, after some reflection, “that if I don’t go to Africa as a missionary, that I’d rather be a widow with an only son.”
“But Cricket,” exclaimed Eunice, “you’d have to be married first if you were a widow.”
“Why, so I should!” returned Cricket, much surprised. “I didn’t think of that. You see, Aunt Kate and Harry have such nice times travelling round together, and there’s Aunt Helen and Max, too. I was thinking of them, and I forgot they were ever married.”
“I think I’ll be a doctor, like papa,” went on Eunice, “or else I’d like to be a stage-driver. Whoa! get up there! So, boy!” she said, slapping imaginary reins, for Eunice was a born horsewoman.
“These clothesareawfully hot, Eunice,” said Cricket, returning to the original topic.
“Let’s go and take them off now.”
Eunice was quite willing, so they clambered down, chattering and laughing still.
At a little distance stood old Thomas, attracted by their voices. He had been coming through the orchard, and he saw up in the tree what he thought were two ragamuffins, stealing apples, and he was lying in wait for their descent. As they slipped down, and swung off from a low branch, he darted forward, and caught one of them in his arms. Of course, it chanced to be Cricket.
“I’ve caught ye now, ye young rascal! I’ll teach yer to steal our apples!”
“Why, Thomas!” cried Cricket, “don’t you know me?”
“Yer bet I know yer. I’ve been watchin’ for yer this long time back. I ’low I’ll give yer a trouncin’ that yer’ll remember for one while, yer young scallawags!” Thomas cried, holding the struggling child by the shoulder, and bringing his stick whack across her back. The big pillow saved her from the blow, and Eunice again flew to the rescue. She managed to get hold of the stick, and clung to it with both her strong little hands.
“Don’t you know us, Thomas?” both children cried. “We’re not stealing apples; they’re ours.”
“Yourn, be they? I’ll teach yer if they’re yourn, yer young impidence!” Thomas cried, angrily, drowning the children’s protests in his loud tones. “I’ve been on the lookout fer ye, stealin’ my apples and melins, and garden truck. I’ll hev ye up before the doctor. He said he saw two strange boys scootin’ round the orchard ’sarternoon; and now I’ve caught yer, I’ll teach yer to steal apples and sich,” shaking her till her teeth knocked together, and her arms flew about like a wind-mill.
Then he tightened his clutch upon the unfortunate Cricket, who was quite overcome by this second attack, and grasping Eunice by the arm, he started off, dragging the protesting children.
“Let usalone, Thomas,” screamed Cricket, at the top of her lungs. “We—’re—not—boys—at—all.”
“Yer don’t come none o’ yer stuff over me,” was all the answer Thomas vouchsafed, still dragging them on with relentless hands.
“But it’s Cricket,” cried that victim, despairingly.
Thomas dropped his hold so suddenly that Cricket sat down very unexpectedly. Eunice pulled off her battered felt hat, and her long braid fell down her back.
Thomas, who had been completely taken in, stared at them.
“Why didn’t ye say so before?” he said, at length. “Gittin’ yerselves up in such rigs that yer own mar wouldn’t ha’ knowed ye. Kep’ a sayin’ ‘We’re not boys, we’re not boys,’ when anyone with half an eye could see ye was. Henderin’ me outer half an arternoon’s work,” and Thomas went off, disgusted.
The children looked at each other and burst out laughing. Their disguise had been altogether too successful. Cricket rubbed her shoulder comically.
“I guess Thomas’s fingers are tipped with steel,” she said. “I know I’m all black and blue.”
“Poor Cricket,” said Eunice, sympathetically. “First you were jammed into a hole and then you were shaken to jelly. I don’t see why he didn’t grab me.”
“It’s a peculiar concidence,” said Cricket, meaning coincidence. “No matter who’saround,Ialways am grabbed. Let’s go and get some plums.”
There were some choice early plums near the front of the house, and the children gathered a good supply and retired into a little rustic arbour to eat them. Presently a carriage full of callers rolled up the avenue.
“Dear me; it’s the Saunders,” said Cricket, peeping out, “and there’s Irene Saunders. Gracious, Eunice, mamma’ll be looking for us in a minute! Let’s skip round to the side-door as soon as they’re in the house.”
But to their dismay, they heard the ladies say to the maid,—
“It’s so charming on this lovely piazza, that we will wait here for Mrs. Ward.”
The piazza was a delightful place, twelve feet broad, and supplied with lounging chairs of every description, a table, magazines, hammocks, cushions and rugs, and sufficiently shaded by vines to soften the sunlight. But the arbour where the children were was in full view.
“Shall we go, anyway?” asked Eunice, but before they could get out, Dr. Ward came round the house, and greeted the guests on the piazza.
“Now, what shall we do?” said Cricket, in despair. “If papa sees us he’ll certainly think we are tramps, too. I heard him tell Thomas, the other day, that tramps were getting so thick, he might have to set the dog on some of them. I don’t think Icouldstand any more knocking round.”
“Well, let’s wait,” said Eunice, for there seemed to be nothing else to do.
Just then Mrs. Ward appeared, and after a moment there were inquiries for Cricket and Eunice. The children were near enough to hear every word.
“I want my sister to see your little flock, Mrs. Ward,” said Mrs. Saunders, graciously, “for you know we all think they are the show-children of the neighbourhood.” Mrs. Saunders was a woman of much means and little cultivation, who had lately taken a summer home in Wellsboro.
Accordingly the twins and Kenneth were soon produced, for they were fresh from the nurse’s hands.
“And Cricket?” said Mrs. Saunders, again, presently. “She is such a charming child—so original and interesting.”
“Oh!” groaned Cricket, in the arbour.
“Children,” said Mrs. Ward to the twins, “you may go, please, and see if you and Eliza can’t find Cricket and Eunice. Kenneth, you take Irene down to the flower-beds, and you may pick a big bunch of nasturtiums.”
The nasturtium bed was dangerously near the arbour. Cricket and Eunice scarcely breathed. The little ones picked the flowers and chatted together.
“What a pretty little house,” said Irene, presently, noticing the arbour. “Is it your house, Kenneth? What’s in it?” She pushed apart the vines and peeped through the lattice.
The next moment the grown people were startled by the little ones’ cries of terror. Frightened by the unexpected sight of the queer-looking creatures in the arbour, they ran screaming toward the house.
“There!” said Cricket, desperately. “We might as well go out. Children are the curiousest things.”
“There’s dretful things there!” screamed Irene, flying to her mother.
Dr. Ward came quickly down the steps to investigate.
Then he stopped and stared in astonishment; and so did everybody else, as the grotesque little figures came slowly out of the arbour.
“It’s only me, papa,” Cricket said, dejectedly; “we have been dressing-up.”
By this time they were veritable scare-crows. Cricket’s hump was well wedged up under one shoulder, and soot, dirt and court-plaster, combined with the effects of the heat, made a little black-a-moor of her. Her hat hung over one ear, and her curly crop was all on end. Eunice’s long hair was loosened from its braid, and hung over her back in a rough, black mass.
Cutting off the trousers to make them short enough had left the upper part of them so very long that walking was difficult, except by a constant hitching up of the band, and their slender little legs looked like very small clappers in very big bells.
The doctor kept his gravity with difficulty, and the guests looked on in polite astonishment at the remarkable apparitions, for a moment, and then everybody laughed.
Mrs. Ward recovered herself immediately.
“Mrs. Saunders,” she said, resignedly, “this isCricket, my charming and original child, if you will pardon my repeating your words. But I am sure this is a case when distance will lend enchantment to your opinion of her. You may go, Cricket.”
And the shamefaced children gladly fled.